automate and run your hyperion environment with zero...

Automate and Run Your Hyperion Environment with ZERO Scripts & Code

HUGmn TechDay2011

March 2011

© 2011 Star Analytics, Inc. 2Confidential

Agenda

• Company Introduction

• Star Command Center (SCC)

• SCC Demonstration

• Client Use Cases

• Client ROI Examples

• Summary


Star Analytics Overview

• Founded 2004

• Company backed by Top Tier VCs

– Hummer Winblad and Lightspeed Ventures

• Product Portfolio

– Star Integration Server – 2005

– Star Command Center – 2009

– Star Command Center Microsoft Azure Edition – March 31, 2011

• 1 Patent Granted, 2 Patents Pending

• Major Partnerships: Oracle (Gold), IBM (OEM), Microsoft (Azure Cloud Partner), Informatica (Certified Marketplace)

• Solid Team with deep Hyperion & BI background

• Headquartered in San Mateo, California


Star Analytics Customers

Finance Energy Health Heavy IndustryTechnology Consumer


Star Analytics’ Two Products

Business Intelligence Reporting Tools

Star Integration Server(Financial Data Integration)

Applications and Repositories

RDBMS

(Oracle, DB2

SQL Server

Business

Objects

Universe

SAP

B/W and BIW

Oracle Data

Warehouse

IBM Data

Warehouse

Other Data

Stores

Microsoft

Excel

Business

Objects

Cognos

ReportNet

Oracle

OBIEEOtherQlikView

Oracle Hyperion Planning Oracle Essbase

Source Financial Applications (“Cubes”)

Oracle HFM

Star

Command

Center

(Process

Automation

And

Workflow

Management)

Operational Applications and Data

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What does Star Address?

• Automation Gaps – Star Command Center

– Automation for Hyperion where very little or none exists

– Elimination of tricky custom automation coding

– Automation Life Cycle Management

– Audit, Compliance & Control of Automation

– Handshake with IT Schedulers – Tivoli, AutoSys, UC4, Control M, OpenView

• Accelerate Implementations

• Create “Self Service Automation” for Business Users

• Greatly enhanced Production Support


Star Command Center (SCC)


Typical Automation Environment

Note: A typical enterprise has many different

systems, applications, platforms and interfaces

to interoperate with.


The Typical Rat’s Nest –With Scripts Everywhere….

Note: Underneath each of these systems there

are various script and command line interfaces

which typically requires specialized knowledge

and custom coding.


Typical Complexity Across Environments

Development

Test

Production

Test

Production

Development

Test

Production

Note: The problem gets compounded across

different operating environments.


Single Product that Manages the Whole Finance Ecosystem

• Orchestrate processes across servers, applications and geographies

• Libraries of finance functions eliminating custom code

• Business friendly interface that supports mobility

• Central repository for compliance and audit

• Handshake with IT Schedulers


Why Star Command Center?

• Brittle scripts deployed across multiple server instances

• Manual processes, collisions on updates, lots of moving parts

• Heterogeneous systems requiring different touch points and creating bottlenecks

• Central management and governance over scripts and automation

• Eliminate complex code and multiple scheduling tools

• Chain processes across all applications and removing slack time

Legacy Contemporary


Hyperion

Reconciliation Module

ODI & DIM

Integrations

HFM TasksConsolidate, Clear/Copy

Data, Load/Extract, etc

FDM TasksFull “4-Fish Process”,

Reports, Custom Scripts

EssbaseBackups, calculations,

data loads, etc

Automation From

Planning Webs

EPMA

(11.x or greater)

Start/ Stop Hyperion

Services

…and anything else with a command-line interface (SQL, etc.)

Dramatically improves

interoperability between

Hyperion modules

Example: Complete Hyperion Automation


Alternatives toStar Command Center

Alternative Approaches Issues

Stay Manual• Time Consuming

• Error Prone

Scripting/Coding

• Brittle & Non-compliant

• Labor Intensive

• Costly

IT-based Scheduling Tools• Not Finance / EPM Aware

• Not Built for LOB User


Star Command Center(animated slide)

Cloud

Applications

Remote Agent

On Premise

Applications

STAR COMMAND CENTER

Automation Repository

Windows Agent

Unix Agent

Process Task #1

Results Returned

• Automation Binary & ASCII file

resources

• Unmanaged & no version control

• Hardcoded values & logins

• Central storage of automation

resources

• Audit, version control and life

cycle management

• Leverage dynamic variables

Fetch File

Resource

Load File

Resources

into the

Automation

Repository

Running a Process

Central Server


Star Command Center(animated slide)

Cloud

Applications

Remote Agent

On Premise

Applications

STAR COMMAND CENTER

Automation Repository

Windows Agent

Unix Agent

Process Task #1

Results Returned

• Automation Binary & ASCII file

resources

• Unmanaged & no version control

• Hardcoded values & logins

• Central storage of automation

resources

• Audit, version control and life

cycle management

• Leverage dynamic variables

Fetch File

Resource

Load File

Resources

into the

Automation

Repository

Process Complete


Live Demo!

Login: http://bit.ly/stardemo

Username: seestar

Password: seestar

http://bit.ly/stardemo


Customer ROI & Examples


Star Command CenterCost Savings Examples

Savings

MasterCard Pfizer Paramount

Description Relative sophistication with automated

scripts. SFCC enhances the overall

architecture. Hard savings incremental

compared to tremendous improvement

on processes and savings on automation

software alternatives

Heavy reliance upon manaul processes

by Accenture Production support team.

Difficult handshake between Windows

and UNIX systems and Hyperion FDM,

HFM and Essbase. High level time

savings estimated at 4,000 hours / year.

Moderate sophistication of application

automation. SFCC enhances current

architecture to better support busines

users. Cost avoidance on automation

software alternatives

$ Savings / Year $ Savings / Year $ Savings / Year

Business Process & Operational Efficiencies 28,200 No Breakout 60,600

Development & Maintenance Efficiencies 6,000 No Breakout 4,800

Audit & Version Control Efficiencies 3,600 No Breakout 5,400

Total Annual Savings 37,800 300,000 * 70,800

Cost avoidance: - Associated License Fees 475,000 60,000 ** 176,000

Cost avoidance: - Product & Requirement

Total First Year Savings 512,800$ 360,000$ 246,800$

* Expecting further refinement on hard cost savings

** Estimated Licensing cost for software alternative

CostsStar Finance Command Center Software License 93,750 160,440 83,000

Star Finance Command Center Annual Maintenance 16,875 28,879 16,600

Software Deployment & Training (100 hours @ 50/ hour) 5,000 5,000 5,000

Total First Year Costs 115,625$ 194,319$ 104,600$

IBM Tivoli across all Hyperion Windows

and Solaris Servers

Expansion of UC4 AppWorx to support

Hyperion automation

IBM Maestro for four production servers

Large Credit Card

Company

Large Pharmaceutical

CompanyLarge Entertainment

Company


PROBLEMS SOLUTION RESULTS

Eliminated Custom Code To Provide a Self Supporting Environment

Cube-to-cube data

movement and orchestration

requiring significant amount

of custom code

Heavy reliance on

consulting to support

solution

Poor data extraction

performance from 37

Dimension Essbase ASO

cube to SQL Server

All automation single

threaded through one

administrator

Full data extraction and

validation from all Essbase

ASO and BSO cubes

automated and reconciled

Move to a solution that

utilizes off-the-shelf

software designed for

finance applications and

users

Extraction from Essbase

ASO cubes meets

requirements

Using SFCC, orchestration

of data movement fully

automated and the status

made visible to business

users via web and smart

phone

Using SIS, cube-to-cube

data extraction removed all

custom scripts

Essbase ASO extraction

completed in < 4 minutes

Star Customer: Large Insurance CompanyMore Timely Financials, Reduced Complexity



HFM, FDM and DWH Automation and Orchestration

Data disconnect between

Oracle HFM and reporting

environment using Oracle

OBIEE

Awkward coordination of

movement of HFM data and

hierarchies into reporting

environment

HFM administrative

operations require

significant hands-on

support

Data refreshed to central

relational repository for

single source reporting

Coordinated handshake

between HFM, SQL Server

and OBIEE with data

validation at each step

Day-to-day HFM

administration performed by

less technical staff

Using Star Integration

Server, all required data

extracted dynamically from

HFM to SQL Server within

the 20 minute process

window

In the process of significant

reduction in manual

administration and custom

code through the use of Star

Finance Command Center

Star Customer: Large Paper Products CompanyMore Timely Integrated Financial Data



Finance & IT Systems Coordination

Homegrown automation

written in Perl & batch not

able to scale to support

growing needs of expanded

EPM footprint

IT uses Tidal Software but

software administration &

design too complex and not

flexible enough for finance

Windows scheduler requiring

RDP access to administer

Artificial slack time to avoid

process collisions

All existing automation

leveraged and script

redundancy removed via

parameterization

SFCC Event Listener bi-

directionally passes

processes with Tidal

Finance team able to run

and monitor EPM processes

from their Blackberries

Nightly processing window

reduced by 45 minutes

Enhance existing

automation and remove

redundancy

Handshake with incumbent

scheduling for consolidated

IT operations

All processes across all

servers and applications

seamlessly integrated with a

central web-based

dashboard

Conditional logic to ensure

processes do not collide

Star Customer: Large For-Profit Education CompanyEliminated Redundant Code, Mobile Enabled



Self-Service Automation for Business Users

Multitude of manual

processes performed by

finance staff

Zero access by line of

business (LOB) users to run

automations

Have “all or nothing”

Hyperion admin access

No ability to let LOB users to

set dynamic runtime

variables

No handshake between

Oracle and non-Oracle EPM

products

Delegation of processes to

line of business users in

various geographies

Limit user access to tasks

for running jobs and

updating outline

Interface to easily set

variables used by processes

across applications and

servers

Automate Cognos

processes in combination

with Oracle EPM

System can be managed by

less technical users

Controlled Hyperion Access

Removed dependency on a

small set of finance staff

members to perform tedious

and often complex processes

Using SFCC’s secure web

interface, LOB users can set

runtime parameters

EPM team able to automate

all systems required by

finance

Star Customer: Large Healthcare ProviderRemoved IT Bottlenecks, Empowered Users



Compliance & Audit around Automation – See who ran what, when & where

Hundreds of Essbase cubes

across Windows and UNIX

platforms

Difficult management of

multiple versions of scripts

across Dev, Test and Prod

environments

Many custom and redundant

business rules

No visibility into version

control and lineage of scripts

No script execution visibility:

Where? When? Who? How?

What?

Eliminates Finance System

Audit Headaches

Using SFCC’s script

management, 20+ hours of

manual work per month are

saved

Enhanced confidence in

running processes and less

midnight shifts for finance

staff

Assurance that the correct

version of a automation is

run

Allow the management &

execution of a process

regardless of platform

Provide enhanced

management of scripts

across all environments

Collapse redundant scripts

through dynamic

parameters

Point in time analysis to see

all details of a script

Track file changes with full

rollback to previous versions

Large Bank – Optimized Business Processes, Eliminated Systems Audit Headaches


Summary Benefits:Cost, Quality and Compliance

• Huge savings as IT & finance resources are freed

– Eliminates manual processes

– Reduces bottlenecks in financial planning, analysis and reporting

• Improved financial data quality

– Integrates with several relational & multi-dimensional applications

– Improves error detection and eliminates time consuming tasks

• Expedited compliance and audit management

– Ensures the right arrays of automations are properly run

– Provides detailed and easily navigable audit trail and version control system

– Role-based, secure end-user access to automations


SCC Plug-in Architecture


Plug In Architecture

Star Command Server

SecurityProcessing Logic

Scheduling

Event Listener

Web Services

Alerts

RepositoryOracle or SQL Server

SMTP Email Server

User Interfaces

AgentWindows

AgentWindows

AgentUnix

Oracle

Essbase

AgentWindows

AgentSolaris

EXE

External Applications

Web Services

WebServices

Plu

g-in

Inte

rface

A complete out-of-the-box-solution, with plug & play standards-based

integration to key Oracle middleware components

BPEL ProcessManager


SCC Task Builder

• Allows rapid integration of any command line interface into SFCC for the tight coupling of existing applications

automate and run your hyperion environment with zero...

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